helpfullness

We know you have an opinion on how things should be run around here. These are suggestions for the forums, and the website.This forum is not a place to ask for suggestions to your own coding (or otherwise) problems.

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s.dot
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helpfullness

Post by s.dot »

This probably isn't possible (unless there's a phpbb mod for it)

But it would be cool if guests or users could rate replies based on their helpfulness. Like x out of x people found this reply helpful.

Sort of like on yahoo answers. :wink:

Just a brain fart.
Set Search Time - A google chrome extension. When you search only results from the past year (or set time period) are displayed. Helps tremendously when using new technologies to avoid outdated results.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

There's a MOD linked to in here for that :)

If it's purely the thread that's rated and has no impact on how we rank users I think it's a good idea, but we'll be shifting to phpBB3 before we make any more modifications I suspect.
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s.dot
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Post by s.dot »

I was thinking more of a per post ranking. So people browsing the thread from say, search engines, could find the more relevent posts in solving the problem.

Would add a bit of interactivity to the site for non-members, and encourage better post writing for current members.
Set Search Time - A google chrome extension. When you search only results from the past year (or set time period) are displayed. Helps tremendously when using new technologies to avoid outdated results.
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CoderGoblin
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Post by CoderGoblin »

Whilst I agree in theory, one of the down sides to this is the natural tendency for people to avoid "bad reviews". If they make a couple of "bad" replies and get marked for it, their contributions are likely to become less. Over time a group of "elite" answerers would emerge, one of the things I like about this forum is the lack of elitism. It's nice to see so many different people answering topics.
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

he said "Whilst", MOD PARENT UP!!!!
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CoderGoblin
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Post by CoderGoblin »

Kieran Huggins wrote:he said "Whilst", MOD PARENT UP!!!!
:?: :?: :?: :?: Lost me :D
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Karma systems are pretty iffy as far as being implemented to make "cheating" hard-to-impossible. I'd love to install one at some point, but I will need it to be completely accountable by way of a logging system for it.
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

The algorithm could be tricky, but the end result is kinda subjective anyway. Besides, don't we have some sort of awards thingy?

@CG: It had something to do with Slashdot and comment moderation in general (or our lack of it). I'm not even sure anymore, but it seemed funny at the time! I need more sleep.
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califdon
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Post by califdon »

CoderGoblin wrote:
Kieran Huggins wrote:he said "Whilst", MOD PARENT UP!!!!
:?: :?: :?: :?: Lost me :D
On this side of the pond, the use of the perfectly good english word "whilst" always causes snickers. We tend to equate it with BBC comedy shows. Our bad.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

I know this topic has been discussed by the mod/admin team before. It is a good idea, but has its issues when it comes to implementation and accountability.
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volka
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Post by volka »

If such a mod is installed I'd like the possibility of marking posts as "parrot" or "echo" :twisted:
Or (on the positive side) a "I second that" and/or "sounds reasonable" marker.
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JAB Creations
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Post by JAB Creations »

Karma systems can work but you have to tread lightly! For example /.'s karma system is all messed up because (from what I can tell) only their mods can give karma, every time I made a useful post I had 10 year olds insulting me, and then the mods would give me negative karma not only for posts defending myself (with tact) but on the original contribution post! So I boycott their lame (obvious) fan-boy site.

The correct way to implement any sort of karma system is as much as I hate their site (and the default icons) ...well I can't remember the name of it...but even when you check Google cache the "accepted answer" is blocked by "give us money" essentially...but the O.P. should be able to at least note once who's post was helpful to solve the original question.

Then there is the issue of multiple questions per thread! So what I would propose is to let them eat pie! If it's a simple straightforward question/answer thread the whole pie can go to one person. If you're working on learning PHP Classes to understand OOP (what I did recently) I could say for example well Everah helped big on one part but since it's an obtuse topic and Everah can't spend three hours on a single reply. So I'd give Everah a piece of the pie.

The only issue is having to figure out how many pieces of the pie need to exist in the first place. We could in that instance make it completely dynamic. A thread with four out of seven questions answered could have an icon that shows four out of seven pieces of a pie in an image showing it's general complexity and how much has been answered. This might be overkill and so you could resort to simply using two halves to represent completely answered, half answered, and not answered while still giving a piece to every useful answer.

The only gray area would be if someone attempts to help out though even though they spent half an hour working on the post they don't get a piece of the pie. In which case it might be better to keep the pie hidden initially until the question has been fully answered.

Gah, well this went on way longer then I wanted...it might not even be a reasonable approach. Anyway /. sucks! Go devnetwork! 8)
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

That sounds like it's more management than most users will likely want to take on.
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JAB Creations
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Post by JAB Creations »

Right, so instead one could create a "answered" or "unanswered" for threads and if the O.P. gets the answer they needed they can mark the thread as answered.
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califdon
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Post by califdon »

JAB Creations wrote:Right, so instead one could create a "answered" or "unanswered" for threads and if the O.P. gets the answer they needed they can mark the thread as answered.
This sounds like the best option to me. Ratings systems are just asking for abuse. Another forum I use has "reputation" points, but they mean absolutely nothing, because a few people engineer "games" to swell their scores (I've seen > 20,000). It would definitely help to mark "solved" threads, though. If we do that, I'd suggest making it fairly obvious for O.P.'s to see how to do it, and it should be emphasized on every page that it's their responsibility to mark it when appropriate.
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